What is the Great Loop?
It's a circumnavigation of the eastern part of the US by waterways. It's approximately 6000 miles (plus many opportunities for side trips). It's typically followed seasonally - winter in the warmth of Florida, spring traveling up the ICW, summer in NY and Canada and then fall heading down the riverways of the mid west. Many loopers complete it in a year.
Here's the official map as published by the American Great Loop Cruisers Association:
Some of our key Great Loop posts:
- Our Great Loop Plans
- Great Loop Boat Specifications
- Shopping for and Buying Our Boat
- Why we Selected our Bayliner 4788 for the Great Loop
- Tour of our Bayliner 4788 — Y-Not
- Sloopers Slow Looping: Eight Years on the American Great Loop and More to Go!
Our Interactive Great Loop Map
We set off on the Great Loop in April 2017, intending to completed it in 2-3 years, taking it slowly. When it gets too cold to boat, we planned to put the boat in storage and return to our RV-home waiting for us in the warmth of the south.
Reality has been - we just love living aboard & cruising in our boat, and are finding even a slower pace of travel is suiting us better. And of course, in 2020 the pandemic put us on pause for a few years having us turn back to a favorite side trip - Sanford, FL.
We officially returned to active looping April 2024, picking up where we left off in Charleston, SC later that summer.
We find we love actively cruising for a few weeks, anchoring out along the way. We're also frequently taking as many side trips as we can, and stopping in places many faster paced Loopers skip. And then finding our next cool coastal city with a marina with easy access to stuff and a great monthly rate.
Click on the area of the map you're interested in to start browsing our travelogues & videos about each stop (individual posts also at the bottom of this page).
The map & routing above is provided by the WordPress plug-in Nomad World Map that utilizes all of our blog travelogue entries.
INTRUDER ALERT – Important Tip Learned For Reaching 911 When You’re Not Local
Last week, our boat was broken into while in storage ‘on the hard’. We’re currently nearly a 1000 miles away from the boat, traveling by van and staying with family in the St. Louis area. As we were settling in for the evening to watch a cop show (ironically), we got a motion alert on […]
Awesome Possum, Rum and Kazoos – Great Loop Cruising from Savannah to Charleston
Sorry for the time line disruption these past couple of months as we’ve had a few real time updates in between our travelogues. Join us as we jump back to June to get you caught up. You know, that time when it was so hot we wished for cooler temps? And now here I sit […]
What’s Next for 2019? Van? Boat? Bus?
Oof. It’s been a jam packed crazy past few weeks. Between 2+ weeks heading down to Florida to be with my mom last month. And returning to the boat in Savannah just to prepare and evacuate for Hurricane Dorian. We’ve hardly had a chance to rest and catch up. We waited out Hurricane Dorian’s path […]
Hurricane Dorian Update: Evacuation from Savannah, Georgia
Thanks to all who have been reaching to see if we’re impacted by Hurricane Dorian’s projected path. And, indeed.. we most probably will be. Our blog/video travel series is always a bit behind due to how much effort they take to produce these days. Last we left you, we were arriving to Savannah – but […]
Getting Buzzed along the Georgia Coastline – Cruising the Great Loop
We’re so glad we booked a month long stay in Brunswick, as it gave us ample opportunity to get acquainted with our new camper van that we found waiting for us in the parking lot. We really had no plans this summer – continue heading north? Stay in Brunswick? Store the boat and go RVing? […]
How Do We Afford Full Time Travel by RV and Boat?
Probably one of the most frequent questions we’ve gotten over the years is just how do we afford our lifestyle of constant million dollar views by RV and boat? We’ve gotten this question pretty much from the time we hit the road back in 2006. Assumptions range from we’re trust fund babies, early retirees and […]
What is the Great Loop? What is the AGLCA?
In late 2016, we announced we were starting our hunt for a boat with the intentions of pursuing the American Great Loop. It’s an adventure we feel is more akin to ‘RVing on Water’ than setting off circumnavigating the world with epic blue water passages (like our buddies Nikki & Jason Wynn are totally rocking!). […]
Back on the Great Loop – FINALLY Leaving Florida! (Or…Wild Horses Couldn’t Drag Our Anchor?)
After a wonderful winter spent on the St. Johns River and in Sanford, we arrived back to Jacksonville so we could bounce over to the RVillage Rally in Live Oak. We returned to The Marina at Ortega Landing (same marina we stayed at back in fall), and came down with ‘conference crud’ that took us […]
Our Top 10 Trade-Offs of the Bayliner 4788 Motoryacht
We love our boat Y-Not, and we’re very pleased with our lives aboard her for the past two plus years. But every boat (or RV) decision comes with compromises. And we’re often asked what are some of the trade-offs we see with the Bayliner 4788. So, this is that post. These are the things that […]
Leaving Sanford and Cruising Down the St. Johns River
Whew.. lots of recent excitement over adding the Travato to our nomadic fleet this month. But we still have lots of cruising travel stuff to catch you up on to get us to Georgia! So lets do the time warp back to March… Last we left you, we were fighting midges in our beloved Sanford. So […]
The Midges of Seminole County (Time to Leave Sanford)
Our stay in Sanford was on a whole, amazing. As we shared in our last post, we loved the historic downtown, the marina, the friends we made and the entertainment options. As soon as we extended our stay, we bought tickets to the last showing of The Bridges of Madison County playing at the Theater […]
Oh Sanford – How you Won our Hearts (#sanfording)
I know however this post comes out, it’ll never be able to fully convey our amazing stay in Sanford. How do you summarize four months into one post? We get asked all the time ‘what’s your favorite place’ or ‘if you decide to settle down, where would it be?’ After 13-years of full time travel […]
